


Chasing the Dragon

by INMH



Series: The Fruits of Mercy [14]
Category: The Order: 1886
Genre: Alcohol, Drug Use, Humor, M/M, Sexual Content, Strong Language, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:08:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25520347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/INMH/pseuds/INMH
Summary: Fruits of Mercy series. Grayson meets a peculiar group of Vampires in his attempts to chase down one of Hastings’s associates.
Relationships: Alastair D'Argyll/Grayson
Series: The Fruits of Mercy [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/785652
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Chasing the Dragon

**Author's Note:**

> Y'ALLLLL WE MIGHT BE GETTING A SEQUEL AND I AM _**PUMPED**_

**[-The Thirty-First of October, 1887-]**  
  
Christ, what had Grayson gotten himself into?  
  
“What a lovely mustache you have, young man!” One man who _barely_ looked older than Grayson clapped him on the back, some of the wine in his glass sloshing out. “How _do_ you keep it so well-groomed?”  
  
“Ah…” Grayson was in shock, unable to speak.  
  
It wasn’t every day that one was interrogated about their mustache-grooming techniques by a _Vampire_.  
  
The Vampire in question seemed to realize the source of Grayson’s reluctance to speak. “Relax, human, we’re _full_ ,” he drawled, gesturing to the dozens of other Vampires spread out across the room. Many were smoking pipes, others were drinking, and some were- good Lord- _humping_ in the darker corners. God, he’d thought this was just an opium den, not a _Vampire_ den. “Not hungry, not hungry at all, all, all. Whoo!” He had straightened up out of his drunkard’s slouch only to waver once he did, apparently overcome with dizziness.  
_  
I am a fool_ , Grayson thought as the Vampire pushed him further into the room, farther away from the door. He had been contemplating how to make a quick escape without being noticed- or at least, without being _as_ noticed. Obviously the Vampires had had him made as soon as he’d entered the room, the stench of humanity all over him, so there hadn’t been any chance of escaping entirely unnoticed.  
  
Now his odds of escaping at all were dwindling with every step he took.  
  
“I am called _Gilbert,_ ” the Vampire leading him slurred, stumbling over the legs of a pair of Vampires sprawled out on a cushion. “What’s your name, lad?”  
  
“Grayson.” He had some hope, at least, that his Christian name was unknown to most everyone outside of the Order.  
  
“‘ _Grayson_ ’, wonderful!” Gilbert chuckled. “As you can see, we are enjoying some earthly pleasures this evening- do you enjoy opium, Grayson?”  
  
“I do not.”  
  
“Have you ever seen a poppy before?”  
  
“I have.”  
  
“Have you ever noticed how _red_ they are?”  
  
“I have.”  
  
“What do you suppose occurs in nature to make a poppy so _red_ , Grayson? Grayson!” Gilbert began to chortle, collapsing onto a vacant cushion. “Gray! A Gray _son_! Sit, my boy, sit!”  
  
Grayson sat, glancing briefly over his shoulder; the way to the door was relatively unimpeded, he could make a run for it and _maybe_ get there. But he feared that this would be a matter of running triggering the predatory instincts that every Vampire in this room, regardless of whether they were high or drunk, possessed. If he ran now, it might trigger them to chase, and he wasn’t completely certain that he would be able to outrun them. Mobbed by opium-addled Vampires would be a bad way to die.  
  
“So, uh… Celebrating All Hallows Eve, are you?”  
  
“Indeed!” Gilbert confirmed, lying back on the cushion and looking absolutely _ridiculous_ in doing so: He was wearing the sort of high-class suit typical to the businessmen and politicians of London. “A night of wine, revelry, and enough opium to kill a dozen elephants! Nice to have a night of relaxation, isn’t it?”  
  
“It is,” Grayson said delicately, glancing around. “Is, uh… Is Lord Hastings here tonight?” He’d meant to poke around and get a feel for the Lord’s usual haunts around the city; it occurred to Grayson that if Hastings _was_ here, that the remainder of his life could likely be counted in minutes.  
  
“ _No_ , no, God no, thank God,” Gilbert rambled. “We are, thankfully, free of his _Laaaaawdship_ ,” he crossed his eyes and made a ridiculous face as he drew out the word, “for the evening.”  
  
“So you’re, ah… friends of Hastings’s?” Grayson inquired.  
  
“Yes, yes, old Hastings! Old Mr. _Neck!_ ” A dark-haired Vampire hooted from nearby, rolling his eyes.  
  
“You know ‘Jacob Van Neck’ isn’t his real name, right?” Gilbert remarked lowly, eyebrows raised. “He renamed himself that after he became a Vampire. The bastard’s got a weakness for puns, and I can’t lie, I’ve been tempted to rip his fucking head off for it before.”  
  
“That’s- I-” Grayson wasn’t even sure how to respond to that.  
  
“I know, I know, what sort of self-respecting Vampire names himself _Jacob Van Neck?_ ” Gilbert asks.  
  
“NONE!” Another Vampire roared.  
  
“Not a one!” A second drawled.  
  
“I mean, is he _trying_ to make a fool of himself, and the rest of our kind?”  
  
“Who are we talking about?”  
  
“Honestly,” Gilbert said, lowering his voice and leaning towards Grayson conspiratorially, “I think he’s trying to compensate, trying to make himself sound all _threatening_ when, at the end of the day, he’s really not that impressive, you know- _down below?_ ”  
  
“Pillow!” One of the female Vampires cried out, getting down on her knees and bowing low, arms outstretched towards one of the cushions on the floor. “All hail the magic pillow!”  
_  
Mad_ , Grayson thought weakly as some of the others laughed and yet others chose to get down on the floor and emulate her. Much like Gilbert, they were all wearing sufficiently high-class, fancy clothing, and it added a lot to what as already a wild scene of drug-fueled mania. _They are all stark-raving mad, and I seem to be trapped here until they get hungry._  
  
That seemed to be the only option, as he did not have _nearly_ enough bullets to take them all out, preemptively or not.  
  
“How many pillows do you think would fill this room?” Gilbert asked, waving an arm limply at their surroundings. “Dozens? Hundreds? Four or five?”  
  
The pause he left afterwards suggested that he actually wanted an answer from Grayson, and so the former Knight cleared his throat and said, “Cushions of this same size you have here?”  
  
“Yes, yes.”  
  
“All the way to the ceiling, wall to wall?” It was a very large room, the basement level of a building in an affluent neighborhood in London. Realistically, it could hold quite a bit of anything, never mind cushions.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Perhaps, uh… _Four_ hundred, give or take?” Geometry had never been Grayson’s strongest subject.  
  
“Oh yes, that sounds about right, just about right for a room of this size,” Gilbert agreed, head lolling back. For a moment he seemed to have passed out, and Grayson was considering making a slow and calculated break for the door when Gilbert suddenly lifted his head again. “How do you suppose a duck flies, Grayson?”  
  
“A duck, yes.”  
  
“I suppose they fly with their wings.”  
  
“But how do you suppose that they are able to fly, when we can flap our arms all day long and never so much as lift slightly above the ground?”  
  
“Feathers, perhaps?”  
  
“Perhaps, perhaps,” Gilbert acknowledged solemnly.  
  
He was discussing the function of a duck’s wings with a Vampire high on opium and drink. _Of all the times in my long, **long** life when I have come dangerously close to death, this is unquestionably the most bizarre of them._  
  
“Gray!”  
  
Grayson started at the familiar voice, and turned to see Alastair wading through the Vampires scattered across the den, smiling politely at the ones that called out to him as he passed by. “Alastair! Wonderful to see you, my boy!” Gilbert crowed as Alastair came to sit beside Grayson. Normally Grayson would have put a little more space between them- especially under these circumstances, it would be easy for conclusions to be drawn- but God, if he wasn’t grateful for Alastair’s presence.  
  
If the Vampires attacked now, he would have enough backup to send their odds of survival skyrocketing.  
  
“Didn’t realize _you_ would be showing up here tonight, Grayson,” Alastair remarked easily; although when his gaze met Grayson’s, his eyes were a little too wide and his smile was a little too tight. Grayson had come to recognize this particular constellation of features as Alastair expressing his frustration and aggravation at Grayson’s behavior when actually giving _voice_ to his feelings was inconvenient or otherwise impossible in the moment.  
  
“I find myself here quite by accident, Alastair,” Grayson responded with his own subtle signals to his old friend.  
  
“He has been such _wonderful_ conversation, this young man,” Gilbert slurred graciously. “Doesn’t do opium, though, which is sad, quite sad. But more for us!”  
  
Alastair laughed gamely. “Well, Gilbert, it has been lovely to see you, but I do need to take Gray outside for a few minutes.”  
  
“Don’t buy grey curtains! They’ll clash terribly with the couch’s upholstery!” A woman’s voice shrieked.  
  
Alastair coughed and turned his head away, but Grayson still saw him smirking.  
  
They left the den at a deliberately leisurely pace, only picking up the pace once they were safely out of sight. Once they were out on the street, Grayson let out the breath he’d been holding since that had all started. “What in the _fuck_ was that?!”  
  
“ _Shh!_ ” Alastair hissed, but there was laughter behind it. “God, Gray, let’s move away from the house a bit before you have a go at it.” He dragged Grayson down the street, which was, thankfully, mostly empty at this time of night. They kept walking until they found an empty alleyway, far enough away from the house that they wouldn’t be overheard by sharp-eared Vampires.  
  
“Now, what the _fuck_ did I just witness? Has someone slipped me something, Alastair? Because I’ve had my fair share of alcohol before, but I’ve never dreamt up anything as mad as what I’ve just seen.”  
  
Alastair, grinning, leaned back against the brick wall and rolled his eyes heavenwards. “This particular portion of the Vampires of London are on the… Hedonistic side. They mix opium in with the blood. And I mean, a _lot_ of opium. I think they’ve cleaned out all of the dens in London- and China, at that.”  
  
“They’re _high?_ ” Grayson remarked with sarcastic incredulousness. " _No_. Surely you jest."  
  
Alastair was smirking, barely containing his mirth. “You haven’t the faintest. Not all Vampires are _quite_ as hedonistic as them, of course, and there’s enough interaction between our two species that some of the more- well- _normal_ Vampires are willing to go to the pub for a pint or two with the Lycans, so to speak, and they have all these mad stories to tell.”  
  
“Madder than what I just saw?” Grayson felt like maybe he didn’t actually want to know the answer to that question, but the curiosity was overwhelming.  
  
“Mad, as in… Orgies, most of the time.” At the expression on Grayson’s face, Alastair snorted loudly. “If that’s how you respond to it, then I guess I shouldn’t tell you about the other debaucheries they get up to. Let’s just say that farmyard animals are occasionally brought in, and I don’t mean for food-”  
  
“ _Stop!_ ” Grayson groaned, covering his eyes, and Alastair started laughing, bending over at the waist and bracing his hands on his knees. “You’re making this up,” Grayson insisted. “You’re fucking with me.”  
  
“I’m not!” Alastair cried. “My sources are completely trust _worthy_ -!” The statement might have been more credible if he hadn’t lapsed into another laughing fit in the middle of the word ‘trustworthy’. Despite his bewilderment, Grayson started laughing too. They stayed like that for a few minutes, two bizarre, giggling fools on the sidewalk in the middle of the night.  
  
“You know,” Alastair remarked once the laughter had died down, reaching up and twisting the fabric of Grayson’s jacket collar between his fingers suggestively, “There’s an inn not too far from here that doesn’t ask too many questions about its patrons. I could find us a goat, and I can show you what the Vampires-” He started wheezing with laughter again when Grayson punched his arm, head dipping in to press against Grayson’s shoulder.  
  
“I suppose I can spare some time,” Grayson chuckled, moving an arm up to circle around Alastair’s back. “So long as you make no more mention of farmyard animals or what the Vampires do with them. In fact, I _demand_ that you never tell me.”  
  
“Fair enough, fair enough- I suppose just because I was horrendously traumatized by that information doesn’t mean I need to inflict the same pain on you.”  
  
“Thank you.”  
  
They started off down the street, passing late-night travelers and revelers. Normally Grayson would be more careful walking down the more affluent streets of London, but darkness had its uses. “You’ve changed,” Alastair mused as they strolled along, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you laugh like that before.”  
  
“Nor I you.” Grayson paused. “I suppose since we’ve removed our professional boundaries we’re free to be a little more… Open with one another.”  
  
“You mean you don’t behave this way with the other Rebels?” Alastair’s voice was tinged with sarcasm.  
  
“Lakshmi, on the odd occasion,” Grayson conceded. “But as a rule, no.”  
  
Alastair made a small noise of dissatisfaction. “We are becoming _entirely_ too emotionally honest with one another for my liking.”  
  
“We shall have to restrict ourselves to mindless fucking and little conversation in the future, then,” Grayson responded in a deadpan.  
  
“Certainly not the worst idea you’ve ever had, Gray.”  
  
-End


End file.
